Variable direction of view endoscopes allow a user to change the endoscopic viewing direction without having to change the position of the endoscope itself. Such endoscopes are useful when the user wants to see structures which are beside or behind the tip of the endoscope, but cannot easily move the endoscope shaft because of anatomical constraints or constraints imposed by other surgical instruments in the operative field.
Solid state variable direction of view endoscopes are robust and less expensive to make than typical surgical endoscopes. Solid state variable direction of view endoscopes provide surgeons with the ability to move the displayed field of view within a larger global wide-angle field. This has the advantage of maintaining the field of view of traditional endoscopy while providing the user with the ability to effectively change the viewing direction of the endoscope, which is desirable in many cases.
The ability to maintain the field of view while providing the user with the ability to effectively change the viewing direction of the endoscope (mode of operation) is preferred to wide-angle endoscopy because surgeons have difficulty with fields which are too wide. Surgical work such as cutting and suturing typically happens over a narrow area and a wide viewing field presented on a surgical display all at once makes particular regions of interest too small when displayed on a fixed size screen. Furthermore, wide viewing fields suffer from distortion, and it is not psychologically natural for humans to relate to viewing wide-angle views such as those produced by broad fisheye type lenses, because humans have a narrow field of visual acuity.
Variable direction of view endoscopes are described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/169,290 entitled “Solid State Variable Direction Of View Endoscope” filed on Jul. 8, 2008 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/354,801 entitled “Wide Angle Flexible Endoscope” filed on Jan. 20, 2012. The contents of U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 13/354,801 and 12/169,290 are hereby incorporated into this application by reference in their entirety. Additionally, variable direction of view endoscopes using deployable endoscope technology are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/572,149 entitled “Deployable Imaging System Equipped With Solid State Imager”, filed on Aug. 10, 2012. The contents of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/572,149 application is hereby incorporated into this application by reference in its entirety.
Endoscopic surgical systems using variable direction of view endoscopes are desirable because such systems afford surgeons greater flexibility in their procedural approach. Known endoscopic surgical systems include: U.S. Pat. No. 7,355,625 (Mochida et al); U.S. Pat. No. 6,936,003 Iddan; U.S. Pat. No. 6,902,528 Garibaldi et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,782 Adair; U.S. Patent Publication No. 2010/0152539 A1 Ghabrial et al.; U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0318758 A1 Farr et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 7,744,528 (Wallace et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 7,714,936 (Martin et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 7,559,890 (Wallace et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 7,382,399 (Mccall et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 6,449,103 (Charles); U.S. Pat. No. 6,215,519 (Nayar et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 6,002,430 (McCall et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,634 (Igarashi); U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,341 (McKenna et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,588 (Martin et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 5,359,363 (Kuban et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,306 (Kuban et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,667 Zimmermann); U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,019 (Juday et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 5,023,725 (McCutchen); and U.S. Pat. No. 4,772,942 (Tuck).
Known commercial endoscopic systems include the Olympus IMAGETRAC® system, which has a proximal camera/image sensor mounted on a stage/gantry which allow the camera to move in 8 different directions. However, the IMAGETRAC® system has poor ergonomics, is expensive and complicated to make, is fragile, and difficult to sterilize.
Furthermore, prior art endoscopic surgical systems suffer from various deficiencies and disadvantages. A main disadvantage with these systems is image performance. In solid state variable direction of view endoscopy, the image sensor with a fixed amount of pixels must capture the entire wide-field and then present to the user only a portion of the field at a time. In traditional endoscopy this same number of pixels is dedicated to a much smaller field/area, thus providing better image resolution/performance than compared to typical solid state variable direction of view endoscopes.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a solid state variable direction of view endoscope that addresses these image performance issue and allows solid state variable direction of view endoscopes to have comparable image resolution/performance to traditional endoscopic systems.